The present application relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, and a program therefor that are capable of combining a plurality of images.
From the past, there is known a stitching technique of connecting a plurality of images having physically continuous information, and the stitching technique is used for panoramic photography, photographing of microscope images, or the like. In the stitching technique, it is important to appropriately set a mutual positional relationship between a plurality of images to be connected to one another.
For example, processing such as template matching is performed on the entire area in which the plurality of images are superimposed on one another, and accordingly an offset value for setting an optimum mutual positional relationship between the plurality of images to be connected is calculated.
Further, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 09-91410 (hereinafter, referred to as Patent Document 1; see paragraphs [0054] to [0071], FIGS. 10 and 11, and the like) discloses a panorama image synthesis system in which a synthesis parameter for connecting a plurality of images is set as follows. First, as shown in FIG. 11 of Patent Document 1, coincidence points in two images 91 and 92 to be connected are designated by a user as user designation points 93 and 94, respectively. Next, a search range 95 with the user designation point 94 as the center on the image 92 is defined. Then, a template image cut out with the user designation point 93 on the image 91 as the center is superimposed within the search range 95 and a difference in a pixel unit is calculated. A point at which the sum of the differences is minimum is calculated as a true corresponding point between the images 91 and 92, and the synthesis parameter described above is calculated based on the calculated true corresponding point.